January 22nd, 2016

Daily Market Commentary

 

ECONOMIC NEWS

  • The Consumer Price Index in Canada was up 1.6% in year-over-year terms, slightly below estimates.
  • Retail Sales in Canada were up 1.7% in month-over-month terms, far above estimates of 0.2% growth.
  • The US Markit Manufacturing PMI was reported at 52.7, above estimates.
  • Existing home sales in the US were up 5.5M in month-over-month terms.

Commodities:

  • Oil rallied in its biggest two-day advance since August after a slump to a 12-year low prompted some investors to buy back record bearish bets.
  • Gold trimmed a weekly advance as a rally in global equities and a rebound in oil cut demand for a haven.

Canada:

  • Barrick Gold Corp., the world’s largest producer of the metal, said it may book as much as $3 billion in impairment charges as a prolonged gold slump forces it to revise its price assumptions for 2016.
  • The federal government is looking to speed up promised reforms to employment insurance with legislation early in the new session, as job losses mount in Alberta and Saskatchewan due to the fall in commodity prices. (Globe)
  • Foreign investors will account for a record amount of commercial-property purchases in Canada this year, spurred by a weak currency, according to a forecast from the world’s largest real-estate services firm.

 

United States:

  • U.S. stock-index futures advanced even as the Federal Reserve tightens policy.
  • General Electric Co. beat analysts’ estimates for fourth-quarter earnings, buoyed by rising sales in the power division as the company made strides at transforming itself into a digitally focused industrial manufacturer.
  • Apple received $1 billion from its rival in 2014, according to a transcript of court proceedings from Oracle Corp.’s copyright lawsuit against Google. The search engine giant has an agreement with Apple that gives the iPhone maker a percentage of the revenue Google generates through the Apple device, an attorney for Oracle said at a Jan. 14 hearing in federal court.

International:

  • European stocks advanced for a second day, erasing a weekly decline, amid increased investor confidence that central banks will act to support markets. Asian stocks rose, with the regional benchmark index heading for its biggest advance since September.
  • U.K. retail sales plunged the most in more than a year in December as mild weather damped clothing demand and early discounting boosted spending the previous month.
  • Royal Philips NV cancelled a planned $2.8 billion sale of its lighting-components unit to a consortium led by GO Scale Capital of China because of opposition from a U.S. regulator charged with vetting foreign acquisitions to protect national security.
  • SAP SE showed progress in remaking itself as a supplier of online software, predicting sales and operating profit next year topping its previous forecast as it moves more customers to a new version of its core software suite and adds cloud-computing sales.
  • The People’s Bank of China is ordering banks to keep a lid on lending rates charged to one another as it seeks to prevent a pre-holiday surge in demand for funds leading to a cash crunch at a time of record capital outflows.

*All information is taken from Bloomberg, unless otherwise noted.